Posted: 06/20/2001

Atlantis: The Lost Empire

(2001)

by Joe Steiff

Disney’s big animated summer blockbuster is a treat for the whole family.

They’re back. No, not the dinosaurs. Not the apes. Not those neurotic talking animals. Well, okay, yes, they’re all back too. But I mean the filmmaking trio responsible for one of Disney’s most applauded films, Beauty and the Beast — producer Don Hahn and directors Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise. Rightly so, Beauty and the Beast was nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award — pretty remarkable for an animated feature. It showcased some of the Disney team’s early forays into combining traditional and computer animation, but its nomination owed as much to the fact that the story was genuinely moving.

So. Yep. Those guys. They’re back with a new Disney film, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, distinctive in its own way due partly again to the animation techniques and also to the fact that it is presented in CinemaScope, rarely used for animated films. Oh, and no songs or adorable little animals or inanimate objects that dance. Quite a departure.

Atlantis (I’ll refrain from abbreviating it “ALE”) seems to owe more to 20,000 Leagues under the Sea than Bambi. The story is certainly larger than the fairy tale of Beauty and the Beast, encompassing New Ageism and a subtextual commentary on the type of stories gloried in films like Indiana Jones’ or implied in titles like Tomb Raider — mercenary archeology. Meaning the theft of artifacts from existing cultures.

The year is 1914, and Milo Thatch (voiced by Michael J. Fox), a cartographer and linguist whose employ at the Museum seems to rest primarily on his skills with the boiler, embarks on a search for Atlantis. Crotchety billionaire Preston B. Whitmore (John Mahoney) has the missing piece to the puzzle of Atlantis’ location, an ancient book, and with Milo’s enthusiasm and ability to translate, funds the expedition.

Milo is quickly thrown into a team led by Commander Rourke (James Garner) and comprised of a variety of ethnic types, a rather anachronistic bid to multi-cultural political correctness. Some critics have considered the team filled with stereotypes, but I have to ask you, how many African American doctors (Phil Morris) have you seen in film? Or Latina mechanics (Jacqueline Obradors)? Okay, the chuck wagon cook (Jim Varney) is a bit of a stereotype, and he feels out of place with the more modern-seeming characters. Helga (Claudia Christian) would probably feel more at home in a Film Noir pic. And Milo is a hero for nerds everywhere. An outsider who wants to fit in, a bit clumsy around people or things he doesn’t know, but confident when he’s in his element of maps, language and engine boilers.

Expecting to find ruins, the expedition instead finds a hidden culture, reminding me of the Big Little Edgar Rice Burroughs books I read as a kid. Here in the lost capital city of Atlantis, the group meets Princess Kida (Cree Summer) who naively trusts in the good intentions of these strangers. Her father (Leonard Nimoy) is a bit more skeptical but still acquiesces to the team’s request to spend one night to re-provision and rest. Are you shocked to learn that the military commander is secretly hoping to pillage the civilization? Are you surprised that Milo has to save Atlantis? If you are, then you’re too young to be reading this website. So go to bed.

But let’s be honest, the major appeal of many Disney films is that you know what you’re getting before you go. There are no earth-shattering twists in the narrative, no surprise endings. Atlantis is a fairly predictable but enjoyable foray back to the stories of Jules Verne and Edgar Rice Burroughs, and for anyone who grew up on those stories, the film is a nice piece of nostalgia. The “new” animation style resembles more what I would expect on Saturday morning cartoons before all the computer generated shows came along. Another form of nostalgia.

As for story, Atlantis seems to be an attempt for Disney’s animated films to grow up, relying on some tried and true formulas found in its classic live action features of the mid-20th Century. I think it works. I didn’t miss singing teapots or huggable animals. I enjoyed the film a lot. But I don’t think that I’m particularly the demographic Atlantis is trying to reach. Whether it can hold the attention of an audience raised on video games like Tomb Raider (the film adaptation of which is Atlantis’ main competition during opening weekend) is a whole different issue. But for us old folks, you know, the ones who remember the original Sunday night Wonderful World of Walt Disney on television, this is a lot of fun.

Joe Steiff watched the television special on the search for Atlantis that preceded the opening weekend of Disney’s film, and he is fascinated by the suggestion that Cuba is actually the top of the mountain range that originally sheltered three sides of the island continent.

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